The conventions of the senses: The linguistic and phenomenological contributions to a theory of culture

Parsons, Arthur S.

doi:10.1007/bf00143284

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 10 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Perception is not as simple an event or process as it might at first seem. Influenced by Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Thomas Csordas (1990Csordas ( , 1993; also see Parsons 1988) points out that the subject-object (i.e., perception-stimulus) distinction does not exist prior to perception. That is, perception actually involves the objectification or constitution of the so-called object (e.g., a feeling, a cat, a smile) understood to be perceived.…”

Section: Sensation and Perceptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Emotional perceptions are "regulatory processes of attention [that] cannot be understood fully without explicit reference to a specific set of cultural practices in which these processes are embedded" (Kitayama and Markus 1994: 349). Bourdieu's formulation of habitus -itself informed by Marcel Mauss's use of this concept (1973Mauss's use of this concept ( :73 [1935) -is instructive here: like bodily practices, perceptive practices such as those entailed in emotions can be seen as "structured structures predisposed to function as structuring structures" (Bourdieu 1977: 72;see also Csordas 1990;Parsons 1988). That is, culturally influenced modes of perception, such as those linked with specific emotion-feelings, become "habitual tendencies" or systematized "predispositions" (Kitayama and Markus 1994: 341-342).…”

Section: Sensation and Perceptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The communicative, judgmental, and behavioral or scripted response dimensions of emotions also move us (see Kitayama and Markus 1994;Lutz and White 1986). Despite theoretical advances such as those outlined above in relation to subject-object and mind-body indeterminacy (see Csordas 1993:150-151; see also Parsons 1988), most social scientists confine the latter kind of movement to the mind, which is seen as the domain of culture, in contrast with the body. This reflects a longstanding, physically uninformed (body-free; disembodied) intellectualist or idealist bias in social-scientific theorizing (Turner 1992:31-34) based in a dualist tradition that is frequently traced back to Descartes.…”

Section: Body and Mindmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

The Jamaican body's role in emotional experience and sense perception: Feelings, hearts, minds, and nerves

Sobo

1996

Cult Med Psych

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

When Jamaicans speak of feelings, they literally mean feelings: physical sensations. Emotions, which emerge through social interaction, comprise an unmarked subset of feelings. They can affect the mind in ways that are actualized in behavior. Emotions affect other parts of the body as well, in ways that follow from an equilibrium model of health. Non-emotional feelings index bodily disequilibrium rather than causing it. An example of such is seen in nerves: a chronic feeling-complaint that comes about when the nerves, associated with perception and sensation, are weakened, and which entails visual dimness, jumpiness, and joint trouble. Although exacerbated by certain social situations, and often used in social commentary and manipulations, nerves is experienced and treated as a physical rather than a socially-based disorder. By studying the bodily dimension of nerves and other feelings we may gain insight into the ways in which the body serves as a source of culture (e.g., nerves culture) as well as into how culture influences bodily experience. We may broaden our understanding of the complex interplay between the bodily and mental dimensions of people's lives.

show abstract

Section: Sensation and Perceptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Sensation and Perceptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Body and Mindmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The Jamaican body's role in emotional experience and sense perception: Feelings, hearts, minds, and nerves

Sobo

1996

Cult Med Psych

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

What is to be sustained? The polysemy of sustainability and sustainable tourism across languages and cultures

Bausch

Schröder

Tauber

2022

Journal of Sustainable Tourism

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Communication, Conflict, and Culture

Mortensen

1991

Commun Theory

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This study examines the role of complex language in the evolution of communication, conflict, and culture. The main thesis is that language, conflict, and communication initially arose from pressures built in to the critical life-or-death situations our ancestors were compelled to share with one another. From such a perspective, communication is viewed as a world-analyzing, reality-testing, sutvival-oriented mechanism. Complex language enables humans to transform the cultural inheritance and fulfill basic ecological tasks associated with individual security and collective well-being.Neither our kinship with other animals, nor the shortcomings of our culture, of our customs and our social institutions, can be overlooked without loss. (Agassi, 1983, p. 237) The Study of OriginsIt is important to understand what made it possible for our human ancestors to learn to talk with one another after the vast expanse of unrecorded history. After all, what happened 10 to 50 thousand years ago is not all that far removed from what transpires within our own time and place in recorded history. Moreover, our ancestors constitute the living legacy for life in the 20th century. Contemporary communicative practices, however they may or may not be related, are manifestations of cultural systems related by the principle of descent with modification (Durham, 1990). Humans, unlike other animals, have developed, as Smillie (1985) states, "the capacity to transmit information, not just laterally, within generations, but vertically across generations" (p. 80). From an ecological standpoint, then, the invention of complex language is only a flicker, a flashpoint, in time removed from the stream of contemporary events. To understand elements of stress, strain, struggle, and strife in the social fabric, we must be prepared to take into account a written legacy that measures the full magnitude of our inheritance.The essential task is to study face-to-face interaction in a way that seeks to demonstrate how the conduct of various individuals, and the systems and structures that support or threaten their collaborative endeavors, are all historically constituted, both at the (micro) level of given types of exchange relations and at the larger (macro) level of the diverse institutional conditions in which they are embedded. This study seeks to reexamine a body of scholarly literature that 273

show abstract

The conventions of the senses: The linguistic and phenomenological contributions to a theory of culture

Cited by 5 publications

References 10 publications

The Jamaican body's role in emotional experience and sense perception: Feelings, hearts, minds, and nerves

The Jamaican body's role in emotional experience and sense perception: Feelings, hearts, minds, and nerves

What is to be sustained? The polysemy of sustainability and sustainable tourism across languages and cultures

Communication, Conflict, and Culture

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About